A century ago, eugenics was embraced by ‘progressive’ elites around the world who fervently believed in evolution and the possibility of an ‘improved’ humanity. The list of worthies reads like a veritable who’s who of politics and academia: in Britain (among others), the Fabians Beatrice and Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Harold Laski, H.G. Wells, John Maynard Keynes and the Huxleys.
In America, the list includes Alexander Graham Bell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Croly (founder of the New Republic). In fact, progressives ridiculed Catholic conservative G.K. Chesterton for his opposition to eugenics and Chesterton responded in typical fashion by publishing Eugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State.
One of the most notorious eugenicists, however, was Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. For Sanger, only the right sort of people should be allowed to reproduce. It should come as no surprise that Planned Parenthood clinics are, to this day, disproportionately located in poorer areas. Whatever else Sanger was, she did remain true to her principles and preached eugenics to the end of her days – even after the Nazi nightmare turned most civilized people against it.
But with memories fading and genetic technology coming to every doctor’s office, the same slippery ideas have made a reappearance. Which leads us to Minette Marrin.
Marrin is a columnist for the Sunday Times of London whose offerings seem to alternate between common sense (her discussion of multiculturalism and public manners, for instance) and absolute horror (as in her seeming approval of Dutch euthanasia). Consider her latest, in which she argues that Down’s children shouldn’t be born because they’ll be a burden to themselves and their families.
Someone close to me in our family has a learning disability, which has been a handicap and a sorrow to her, and my lifelong experience of children and adults with learning disabilities, including many with Down’s, as they have grown older has given me a different perspective. I am convinced that it is a grave misfortune for babies to be born with Down’s or any comparably serious syndrome. It’s a misfortune for their parents and their siblings as well. Sad observations over decades have convinced me: a damaged baby is a damaged family, even now. . . .
There are some strange contradictions surrounding the question of abortion. People who reject abortion as always wrong are consistent and one cannot argue with them. But anyone who thinks abortion is acceptable under some circumstances, and who yet disapproves of what’s emotionally seen as ‘eugenic’ abortion, is in an untenable position. After all, people accept abortion for certain ’social reasons’, and what more powerful ’social reason’ could there be for an abortion than the virtual certainty that the foetus would be condemned to a life of frustration, disappointment, dependence, serious illness and poverty, to the great sorrow and hardship of its family?
While I appreciate the difficulties involved in raising a handicapped child, my own assessment isn’t as dour as Marrin’s. I have in mind a Down’s adult named Chris, a vibrant Christian man whose faith, good cheer and instinctive kindness have taught me much about what’s truly important in this life. In God’s Kingdom, Chris wears a larger crown than me and deservedly so.
For the Christian at least, none of us is born ‘perfect’. We’re all damaged goods and the difference is one of visibility. And it’s no surprise that Christians through the ages have cared for the sick and rescued the abandoned – which is why they’re hated by ‘progressives’ of every age.
H/T to Allahpundit for Marrin’s column.
